I’m not sure if this is what you meant about the electricity poles, but if you click and hold while moving, they will automatically be placed at the correct distance. I somehow played for hundreds of hours before learning this. Not quite : power poles will be placed so that no entity needing power ...

I just bought game last nite and went right for the v17 latest experimental build. I blinked and it was 2:30am. I had a lot of fun building the automated defenses system in campaign. Trying to place electricity poles will trigger the slightest case of OCD though...